Field of the Invention
The present disclosure generally relates to digital pathology, and more particularly relates to identifying a tissue area on a glass slide using a digital slide scanning apparatus.
Related Art
Digital pathology is an image-based information environment which is enabled by computer technology that allows for the management of information generated from a physical slide. Digital pathology is enabled in part by virtual microscopy, which is the practice of scanning a specimen on a physical glass slide and creating a digital slide image that can be stored, viewed, managed, and analyzed on a computer monitor. With the capability of imaging an entire glass slide, the field of digital pathology has exploded and is currently regarded as one of the most promising avenues of diagnostic medicine in order to achieve even better, faster, and cheaper diagnosis, prognosis, and prediction of important diseases, such as cancer.
A conventional digital slide scanning apparatus typically includes a high-resolution camera sensor that is used for scanning a high-resolution image of the specimen on the slide. A conventional digital slide scanning apparatus also typically includes a low-resolution camera sensor that is used for scanning a low-resolution macro image of the specimen on the slide. Typically, the macro image is used to identify the area of the glass slide that is occupied by the specimen, and may also be used to generate a thumbnail image of the whole slide. A drawback of the conventional digital slide scanning apparatus is that the inclusion of the low-resolution camera sensor adds cost to the apparatus. One solution that has been proposed is to use the high-resolution camera sensor to capture a high-resolution macro image.
However, a disadvantage of having a high-resolution macro image obtained by the high-resolution camera is that the high-resolution macro image often includes unwanted image artifacts from physical items on the slide or slide cover slip, such as dust, fingerprints, and/or the like. These artifacts can be introduced during slide preparation or handling.
These unwanted image artifacts in the macro image can significantly impact the image processing that is performed on the macro image of the specimen to determine, for example, the location of the specimen, the area of the glass slide to be scanned, and an initial focus point on the specimen. Furthermore, if an initial focus point (e.g., for constructing a focal surface) happens to be set to a location of an unwanted image artifact, the quality of the resulting digital slide image can be negatively impacted. Therefore, what is needed is a system and method that overcomes these significant problems found in the conventional systems as described above.